Time to Think!

 In the words of a great poet, “my country is a badly taken selfie”. The angle isn’t right and neither is the lighting, the corrupt officials and street kids in the background distract the viewer from the beauty of the pearl which makes  the selfie not worth more than ten likes on Instagram. To make things worse, we have been hit by the second wave of the corona virus and news is circulating of an emergence of a mutation of the virus. Our socio-economic and political structures weren’t built to accommodate crises and the minds of our leaders do not have the capacity to adapt to the rapid changes effectively. At this point in time no amount of filters and photoshop could help fix this badly taken selfie of a country.

“Man’s mind is his greatest literature.” I will confess that I have this short phrase tattooed on my heart right next to the quote from the book of Isaiah 1: 18. The ability to delight in the library of the mind is an underrated and unexplored phenomenon especially amongst the youth. We delight more in content outside of us and neglect our wits. It’s an unfortunate thing; very pitiful indeed. The fatality of this weak and mediocre mentality has been magnified to me during these 42 Days of Lockdown enforced by the government. When the president announced that the country would be going into forty two days of a lockdown my mind ‘auto-corrected’ his statement to  ‘42 days of Creating’.  In this simple switch of lenses that I have conditioned my mind to do, I have been able to change the quality of my selfie as a Ugandan. While most of my agemates waste their days being locked down, I have chosen to spend these forty two days growing in my craft and skill set. And this is in no attempt to exalt myself or appear like I have my life together, but this slight change in perspective is what is going to set me apart from the crowd at the end of the day.

Many people look at excellence and success with little understanding of what it takes to achieve these things. I have learnt recently that excellent people pursue what mediocre people scream at and this new piece of information resonates deeply with the thoughts I have had in the  recent past. I am compelled to pursue this second wave that so many Ugandans are screaming at. That is not to say that I am ignoring the current status quo; instead, I am choosing to live above it and essentially eradicate the phenomenon of ‘crisis’ from my mind. I’ve adopted this mentality from a race that I consider extremely excellent. The Mandarin language is predominantly spoken by Chinese people and it; like any tongue, goes beyond just being a dialect- it’s  a language that embodies years of tradition, culture and beliefs. In the Mandarin vocabulary the term “crisis” is synonymous with the term “opportunity”. This alone communicates volumes with regards to the importance of choosing the lens through which you look at life.

There’s an unfortunate general assumption  that there’s only one lens to look at things and this is of course in conflict with human nature in itself but most people wouldn’t know that because they seldom take a moment to meditate on the content of their minds. If you aim to meditate and delight in thinking, you become more aware of the power of choice that you have and how impactful that power can be. When the youth and Ugandans in general reach a level where we can individually harness this power and change lenses then the quality of our selfies will definitely improve beyond expectation. 

Specifically to my age mates; the generation that has had to sit final exams during a pandemic, lose family members to an unfathomable virus, lose time because of the constant national lockdowns and preventive measures, the generations that has been forced to change its way of life to fit a new normal- do not wallow in self pity but instead change your lens. 

Is it a crisis or is it an opportunity?

The choice is yours to make lest you keep up with this streak of terribly taken selfies.

Choose your lens. Choose your selfie